Paweł Althamer: Almech

Since the early 1990s Paweł
Althamer has developed a singularly participatory mode of art making,
generating unique social experiences for his collaborators and audiences alike while
also producing a distinct body of sculptural work. For his Deutsche Guggenheim
commission—the 17th in the museum’s series—Althamer has fused these two trends
in his practice, creating an exhibition-in-progress. Almech is born out of a physical and psychic exchange between the
museum and Almech, a small plastics-manufacturing firm founded and operated by
the artist’s father in Wesoła, a suburb of Warsaw. Relocating a branch of this
factory to Berlin, Althamer has set up machines and workers in the exhibition
space, where they produce sculptural portraits of staff and museumgoers. This extensively
illustrated volume documents this project throughout its many stages—from
preparations in Wesoła through the creation of the first
sculptures at the Almech art factory in Berlin. The accompanying essays provide
important insights into this exchange between museum and
factory: Nat
Trotman, curator of Almech, explains
how the project fits within the artist’s 20-year career while the Pulitzer
Prize winner Anne Applebaum elucidates a history of the Almech factory. Critic
Paweł Moscicki places the
artist’s participatory practice within a wider social and historical context.